Author Archives: Tom Pitegoff

About: Tom Pitegoff

Tom Pitegoff is co-chair of the LeClairRyan franchise industry team. He is an internationally recognized leader in the franchise field. He drafts franchise agreements and disclosure documents, obtains state franchise registrations and provides ongoing franchise compliance counseling services. He represents foreign franchisors in their U.S. business and U.S. franchisors expanding abroad. View My Full Bio at LeClairRyan →

A multi-unit franchise owner can structure its operations in a number of ways, but one approach in particular often makes a lot of sense: a developer entity that acts as the parent company for the individual franchise locations. First some background. Many franchisors seek out franchisees who want to open three or more units. One approach is to sign a development agreement in which the developer commits to open an agreed-upon number of franchise units in a defined territory over a specified period. In exchange, the franchisor agrees not to open a company-owned unit or to grant a franchise to …

A franchisor selling franchises in the U.S. must disclose its audited financial statements in Item 21 of the franchise disclosure document (FDD). Sometimes, parent company financials are used instead of the franchisor’s financials. This is easily done when the parent company is a public company that already has audited financials. But most franchisors are not public companies. They are not likely to have parent company audited financials and would prefer not to incur the added expense of auditing a group of companies rather than just the franchisor entity. Audits are expensive. The franchisor may also want to shield its parent …

One of the toughest challenges an aspiring franchisor may face is selling its first franchise. Who would take the risk of buying a franchise from a franchise company that has no franchisees? For a few successful business owners, the idea of franchising may come from one or more customers who love the business concept and initiate the idea of buying a franchise even before the owner has taken the first step to prepare a franchise offering. But this rarely happens. Here’s another suggestion: If the aspiring franchisor has a successful business unit (a store or a restaurant, for example) that …

Effective January 1, 2017, any franchisor that wants to offer SBA guaranteed financing for its franchisees will use a single, two-page form addendum. In a notice issued just before Thanksgiving, the SBA announced that it will no longer review franchise agreements to determine whether affiliation exists between the franchisor and franchisee in any specific franchise system. Previously negotiated SBA addenda will no longer be accepted. SBA loans are only available to independent small businesses as defined in the SBA regulations. Some franchisors impose a level of control in the franchise agreements that the SBA considers to create “affiliation” between the franchisor and …

What’s a franchise? Franchise registration and disclosure laws define a “franchise” more broadly than people generally realize. A company may be franchising without knowing it. The “license” agreement may have been drafted, for example, by an attorney who has limited knowledge about franchise law. Hence the popular topic (at least among franchise lawyers) of the “inadvertent” or “accidental” franchisor. A business owner who has run a successful “test” of licensing its business may decide that the next step is to set up a franchise system, not realizing that the test was already a franchise sold in violation of one or …

In several states that require franchise registration, franchisors should suspend franchise sales while an amendment or renewal application is pending with the state. Franchisors commonly suspend franchise sales pending registration in most states that require franchise registration. But California and New York each offers a unique and very different approach than a blackout or suspension of sales. California takes an approach that is eminently practical. In California, a franchisor may deliver to a prospect the franchise disclosure document (“FDD”) as filed with state for renewal or amendment together with a written statement that the filing has been made but it has not …

In order to access the full range of remedies the Defending Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) offers, a trade secret owner must notify employees and contractors of certain rights they have under the DTSA. The DTSA allows a trade secret owner to seek damages and injunctive relief in federal court against someone who misappropriates the company’s trade secrets. The trade secret must be related to a product or service used or intended for use in interstate or foreign commerce. The action must be brought within three years after the misappropriation was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered. And the …

On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed into law the Defending Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (the Act). The Act amends the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 to create a federal private right of action for the misappropriation of trade secrets. The Act offers to all companies with trade secrets new tools to protect against their misappropriation in interstate commerce as well as foreign commerce. Trade secret owners can use the Act in defending against both domestic and foreign threats.

Intellectual property is a core asset of any franchisor. In fact, intellectual property is important to virtually all businesses. For some companies, it’s their most valuable asset. A basic knowledge of intellectual property law enables an owner or manager to facilitate the development, protection and commercialization of the company’s intellectual property and to engage in productive discussions with the company’s legal counsel. Intellectual property falls into four categories – trademarks, copyrights, patents and trade secrets. A trademark is a brand. It’s the words or designs that identify your company when it sells anything. Copyright law protects creative works. In the …

Will California’s recent overhaul of its franchise relationship law lead to a proliferation of state franchise relationship laws? I doubt it. As I’ve written elsewhere, my guess is that the California law represents a specific congruence of interests that is unlikely to be repeated in other states. Outside of California, the new franchise laws being enacted today have nothing to do with termination and non-renewal or good faith in franchise relationships. Instead, we are seeing new state laws declaring that franchisors are not joint employers of the franchisee’s employees. Such laws were passed in recent months in Texas (S.B. 652), Louisiana …